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What is Positioning theory

Chapter 10
Handbook of Research on Discourse Behavior and Digital Communication: Language Structures and Social Interaction
– a method of analysis developed in psychology that examines discourse, usually oral interaction to find ways of understanding how identities are produced and performed for that interaction. It seeks to understand the roles interactants attribute to themselves and others, and how they react to the roles they are put in. The positioning of the self and the positioning of others can be revealed through the use of language – through word choice, metaphor and rhetorical strategy.
Published in Chapter:
‘Masculine Normal Guy Here' – Lonely Hearts and ‘Normal' Gays in Cyberspace
Martin Paviour-Smith (Massey University, New Zealand)
Copyright: © 2010 |Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-773-2.ch010
Abstract
This chapter examines the discourse of dating advertisements on a small-scale dating site, NormalGay.com. I analyse the deployment of linguistic resources of identity-making, in particular, the term, normal, and how members take up or reject this position. Examining the profiles as strategically managed displays of capital on the dating market reveals normal to have a number of meanings which are encoded in different ways. Many profile creators deploy the rhetorical strategy of the enthymeme to covertly define the term with respect to heterosexual norms. Others, who see the dating site as an extension to their off-line lives, define the term against the backdrop of “the gay scene”. The interpretation of identity terms such as normal requires construing the positions taken up with respect to their imagining of the community, heteronormative masculinity and understandings of gay male sociality.
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